Artist

Paul Simon

Newark, United States • b. 1941

Paul Simon is a musician from Newark, United States, active since 1941. Their discography on Gatefold includes 24 records.

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Albums tracked

714

In collections

1941

Since

Biography

Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. One of the most celebrated artists of the twentieth century, Simon's career has spanned six decades. Born in New Jersey, Simon grew up in the borough of Queens in New York City and developed an interest in rock music in his teens. He began performing with his schoolfriend Art Garfunkel in 1956; together the two came to prominence in the 1960s as Simon & Garfunkel. The duo's blend of folk and rock music in hits like "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs.

The Arc of Paul Simon

The pivots — what forced Paul Simon to reinvent.

The Muscle Shoals Pivot
After the split with Garfunkel, Simon ditched the pristine New York vocal stacks and headed to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio to work with the Swampers. You hear the shift immediately on 'There Goes Rhymin’ Simon' where the stiff folk structures give way to gospel and R&B grooves. He was looking for a grease that the folk scene lacked, leaning on the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section to provide a loose, Southern pocket. It turned him from a poetic songwriter into a proper groove-based artist.
The Johannesburg Sessions
Following the commercial failure of 'Hearts and Bones,' Simon became obsessed with a bootleg cassette of South African mbaqanga music. He flew to South Africa in '85 to record with local players, ignoring the political firestorm to capture a specific, rubbery bass tone and accordion-heavy drive. The resulting record, 'Graceland,' didn't just save his career; it changed the way pop music integrated polyrhythmic structures. It felt like a reinvention of the drum kit, trading standard rock beats for a cyclical, percussive energy.
The Sonic Architecture Era
By the mid-2000s, Simon moved away from world-beat explorations toward a dense, glitchy textural focus, most notably on 'Surprise' with Brian Eno. He traded his acoustic foundations for Eno’s 'sonic landscapes' and electronic treatments, creating a weird tension between his precise songwriting and digital chaos. This led to his later work like 'Stranger to Stranger,' where he used custom-made instruments like the Cloud-Chamber Bowls. He became less interested in the song as a story and more interested in the song as a frequency.

Influences

The Everly Brothers — Simon has explicitly stated that 'Bye Bye Love' was the template for Simon & Garfunkel’s vocal blend. You hear it in the tight, two-part harmony and the percussive acoustic guitar strumming that defined the early Columbia years. It’s the DNA of everything they did before they got weird.
Chuck Berry — Before he was a folkie, Simon was a rock and roll obsessive who modeled his early Tom & Jerry guitar playing on Berry’s double-stop riffs. The rhythmic bounce of 'Kodachrome' is just a sophisticated evolution of a Berry shuffle. He took the rock and roll backbeat and sanded it down for a collegiate audience.
Odetta — Simon cites her 1956 album 'Sings Ballads and Blues' as the record that made him trade his electric guitar for an acoustic. Her heavy, rhythmic thumb-picking style is the foundation for his fingerstyle work on 'The Paul Simon Songbook.' She provided the weight that grounded his pop sensibilities.
The Dixie Hummingbirds — He brought this legendary gospel group in to sing on 'Loves Me Like a Rock' because he’d been studying their vocal arrangements since the 50s. You hear their influence in the call-and-response structures he uses to build tension in his solo work. He wasn't just a fan; he hired them to prove he knew the source material.
Jimmy Cliff — Simon traveled to Kingston to record with Cliff’s backing band after being floored by the rocksteady and early reggae coming out of Jamaica. 'Mother and Child Reunion' is one of the first credible examples of a white American artist getting the reggae feel right. It was a direct result of his obsession with Cliff's 'The Harder They Come' era.